Year | Event |
---|---|
1896 | Connecticut became the first state in the United States to prohibit persons with mental disorders from marrying. |
1896–1933 | Every state in the United States passed a law prohibiting marriage by persons with mental disorders. |
1907 | Indiana became the first state to pass a bill calling for people with mental disorders, as well as criminals and other “defectives,” to undergo sterilization. |
1927 | The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that eugenic sterilization was constitutional. |
1907–1945 | Approximately 45,000 Americans were sterilized under eugenic sterilization laws; 21,000 of them were patients in state mental hospitals. |
1929–1932 | Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland passed eugenic sterilization laws. |
1933 | Germany passed a eugenic sterilization law, under which 375,000 people were sterilized by 1940. |
1940 | Nazi Germany began to use “proper gases” to kill people with mental disorders; 70,000 or more people were killed in less than 2 years. |
Information from: Fischer, 2012; Whitaker, 2002. |